Monday, 11 March 2013

Another 15mm army on the way to be sold. I have several Arab armies from the Conquest to the Mamelukes and I'm planning on thinning them down to just the Umayyad / Abbasid era which I'll keep as opposition for my Thematic and Nikephorian Byzantines. The Seljuk Turks went to a nice home overseas.

This is the Arab Conquest army with lots of added Berber troops. The army is built around a core of 4 infantry units each based around a colour. These are warband / offensive spear types, depending on the rules, - essentially well motivated and aggressive. Each unit is a mix of Essex, Minifigs and Irregular Miniatures.

Then the supporting troops. A lot of these are filler for the flanks, intended to delay or occupy the enemy long enough for the hard core spears to do the real job.

The Berbers. A mix of medium / auxilia types and close order spears.

And the skirmishers - lots of them.

And an old Irregular Miniatures elephant model which I had to buy. The elephant is not a part of the army but it looked so good I wanted to paint it. I also liked the Irregular Miniatures chaps with spear and javelins. I think I read somewhere they were intended to represent anti-elephant troops.

Sunday, 10 March 2013

A couple of weeks ago I got to play a game of Saga, the dark ages skirmish game. It was a Saxon vs Viking bash using the figures and rules of fellow gamers. It was fun though I did stumble with the mechanisms at first.

Although it has been said elsewhere that Saga is expensive and gimmicky for what you get, and the game system may have plaigerised from a card-driven game, it was quite simple and fun.

By the end I reckoned I could do something with some Arabic / Andalusian figures that have been lying in box for years - ever since the last time someone suggested a skirmish game. Hopefully I can get some more paint splashed on some of these figures soon.

Sometimes the rest of life stops the painting for a while. But I did manage to finish some Russians for Napoleon at War. Then it took another 3 months to get around to taking photos. Not too much just now, but I hope to eventually complete a full division with cavalry support. I'm basing the 'army' on the 4th Division in 1812-1814. First the Musketeers. Infantry basing is 6 stands plus usually 2 stands of skirmishers. The Russian Line musketeer units have only one skirmisher because of less emphasis on skirmishing (French and Brits have 2 stands).

Then the jaeger. Same basing of 6 stands but with 2 stands of skirmishers.

The two jaeger units in line.

And with added support from the musketeers. This should look better when I eventually get another 3 battalions of musketeers done.

Then you need to add the Russian God of War.

And a view from the French side of the field.

The battle line spread out. The 3 skirmishers away at the back are awaiting their fully painted battalions to take their place.

A jaeger unit without skirmishers.

The musketeers in line and column without their skirmish screen .

More to come eventually, though not sure when. Three battalions of musketeers, two regiments of cuirassiers, cossacks and generals are waiting. And that's just half the division.